If you have Campbell Brown fooled ... you might be Fox News

So Campbell Brown is the latest journalist who fails to critically examine whether Fox News is any different than MSNBC. Eric Boehlert has done an excellent job taking down this argument here.

On her October 28 show, following an interview with White House adviser Valerie Jarrett, Brown stated:

So I am stating what I think is the obvious here. Jarrett seems loathe to admit that MSNBC has a bias, and that is where the White House loses all credibility on this issue. Just as Fox News leans to the right with their opinionated hosts in primetime, MSNBC leans left. I don't think anyone at Fox or MSNBC would disagree with that.

Of course, as Boehlert and Jamison Foser have repeatedly pointed out, those who call attention to MSNBC's primetime programming always seem to overlook that three hours of MSNBC's morning programming is dominated by unabashed conservative and former Republican congressman Joe Scarborough (who is often joined by old-school bigot Pat Buchanan).

But the problem with Brown's statement is even more fundamental. Brown -- like Jake Tapper and Howard Kurtz and others -- suggests that Fox News' conservative bias is merely the result of -- or exists solely in -- the network's opinion programming.

Brown states: "It would be great to talk honestly about how we draw important distinctions between the various media outlets." Okay, Campbell, let's break it down again. Here's an even easier way to distinguish between Fox News and MSNBC:

If you regularly doctor quotes and videos to completely change the original meaning - sometimes to the complete opposite of the original meaning ... you might be Fox News.

Note that Fox News as a "news" organization is guilty of all of the above breaches of basic journalist ethics. It's not just Glenn Beck, Bill O'Reilly, and Sean Hannity.

Brown goes on to state:

Opinionated cable news hosts have a valid but very different role. They either cheerlead or criticize and in doing so they connect with those who agree with them. They validate the opinions of those on the left and on the right. They provoke one another, they fight with one another, and yes, they entertain us, and in a polarized country, that gets big ratings. I'm not critical of what my friends at Fox News and MSNBC do, but it is apples and oranges when compared to what we at CNN do and we should all just acknowledge that.

Brown completely ignores CNN's own "opinionated host in primetime," Lou Dobbs. "We should all just acknowledge that" Dobbs has repeatedly advanced conspiracy theories, including that the President of the United States hasn't released a valid birth certificate, spread numerous falsehoods about immigration, and associated himself and CNN with a right-wing hate group.

"We should all just acknowledge that" as long as Brown and others continue to advance this ridiculous false equivalency between Fox News and MSNBC -- while overlooking the problems in their own houses -- Fox News will continue with business as usual.